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Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Neal Boortz is a moron: Part 2

The "Neal Boortz is a moron" series may have to be ongoing, as this post doesn't even contain the material that was going to be part two. I've mostly finished that one, but haven't gotten around to finishing it up, mainly because I've been doing some voracious reading, having yesterday finished Glenn Greenwald's new book. I'll review that and a couple of other books at the end of this week (I hope.)

But here's what Boortz said today that was moronic:

"All terrorists are Muslims."

Of course, he added the qualification that in this day and age "for all practical purposes" all terrorists are Muslims.

But if Boortz was just saying that a lot or most of the world's terrorism is committed by Muslims I wouldn't quibble with him. Yet that's not what he's doing. He is at the same time denying the existence of homegrown domestic terrorism like McVeigh and abortion clinic bombings that occurred during the Clinton presidency because America's right-wing was in a hysterical panic that the country had become a totalitarian communist state.

And it was idiots like Boortz on the AM radio that helped spark that furor.

On the same broadcast today, Neil was talking to a caller who was trying to convince him that there are plenty of Americans who would be willing to take up arms against their government in defense of their liberty, and that we are not that far away from another revolution.

Boortz hoped the caller was right but didn't think that many Americans believed in liberty. What was the caller so fired up about? What was this grave threat to liberty that would necessitate taking up violent insurrection? The prospect of a Democratic president and the paranoid conspiracy theory being pushed by Boortz that Democrats are going to shut down talk radio. Boortz himself describes Hillary Clinton as a "fascist socialist."

Around November or December of last year a caller suggested to Boortz that our gov't was so broken that it would take a dictator to fix it. That what we need is to elect a dictator for five years to come in and "fix" democracy. When Boortz asked who the caller would trust with such power the caller had an answer ready to go: Newt Gingrich. So what did the "libertarian" Neal Boortz then say to the caller? Did he passionately denounce the notion that the American republic should have a dictator? Did he ridicule the absurdity of notion that a dictator, once in power, would abide by a term limit? No, nothing like that. He gave some lukewarm skepticism, something to the effect of, "eh, I don't know ...".

I'm going to plug The Authoritarians again. If you haven't read that yet, the following might not make as much since. The conservative movement is comprised of authoritarians who are extremely comfortable investing their leaders (e.g. President Bush) with unlimited power to achieve their ideological ends, but at the same time are completely uncomfortable having any such power invested in their Enemy (e.g. Democrats, or what Boortz calls "collectivist liberalism" aka communism). They view the world in Black and White, Good vs. Evil. And the Democrats are Evil.

Which is why when a Democrat is elected in '08 the the conservative movement noise machine is going to be thrown into a fit of paranoid hysterical panic the likes of which we have never seen. The current administration has amassed more power than any other modern administration ... when they lose that power, the exact moment they lose it, they are going to be screaming non-stop that the United States is a communist totalitarian state controlled by "Dhimmicrats" that is being invaded by "Marxist" Mexicans "Requonquistas"

And then we'll see a resurgence in the militia movement and a rise in domestic terrorism. Maybe one of the Timothy McVeigh's in training - let me explain: see here

A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization

....

The report said that neo-Nazi groups like the National Alliance, whose founder, William Pierce, wrote "The Turner Diaries," the novel that was the inspiration and blueprint for Timothy J. McVeigh's bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, sought to enroll followers in the Army to get training for a race war.

The groups are being abetted, the report said, by pressure on recruiters, particularly for the Army, to meet quotas that are more difficult to reach because of the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq.

The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members."

So like I was saying, maybe one of the McVeigh's in training will come back home, listen to the buzz from the noise machine about how the Evil Communist/Socialist/Fascist/Dhimmicrat DemocRats are in power, and maybe he'll decide to correct Ann Coulter's "only regret" about Timothy McVeigh and attempt blow-up the New York Times, especially since conservative movement pundits and right-wing demogogues have been accusing the paper of treason for years now.

There's a storm a coming, and it's going to be ugly. But you don't have to take my word for it. Dave Neiwert has been covering this beat for years and he's got the same feeling that something dark might be headed our way.

6 comments:

Concerning "All terrorists are Muslims": OK, Boortz misspoke. He should have said, *nearly* all terrorists who pose a serious threat to us are Muslims. A very, very slim minority of terrorists are non-Muslim, like the ones you trotted out to make your point.

The bigger question does not concern Boortz's (slight) exaggeration. It concerns your deep offense at someone pointing out that terrorists are Muslim. Why does that raise your ire? Why do people on the left go out of their way to defend those who want to kill us all? Are you nuts?

You seem to be under the impression that you have some sort of mind-reading powers. I don't take any offense, at all, at someone pointing out that there are terrorist Muslims, or the the majority of global terrorist activity is committed by Muslims. Apparently you have reading comprehension problems, as I stated this within the post you are responding to. What I have a problem with is an idiot making an idiotic statement which whitewashes the very real threat of domestic terrorism from the Christian identity and militia movement that is set to explode if a Democrat is elected in '08.

"Why do people on the left go out of their way to defend those that want to kill us all?"

Why do individuals such as yourself feel the need to reflexively label as "left" anyone that says something you disagree with. If you didn't have such a habit, you might have taken the time to notice that I am an atheist and am fiercely critical of orthodox Islam, and most especially Islamic terrorism.

You should understand that I wasn't just responding to Boortz's comment in a vaccuum. As I mentioned, Boortz has callers suggesting we turn America into a dictatorship or hinting at a violent revolution is in the works if a Democrat becomes president and he routinely demonizes Hillary Clinton (and again, this would not be a good place to make an assumption - I think it is a travesty that there is any possibily of Hillary Clinton becoming president) as a "fascist socialist."

The patriot/militia movement, for some insane reason, view the Clintons as fascist/socialist/communist agents of Satan - I mean that literally - who are here to bring forth the New World Order (a conspiracy theory that traces it origins back to the Protocols of Zion forgery).

Rhetoric and conspiratorial thinking like Boortz's only makes the threat that these people will engage in domestic terrorism more likely.

It doesn't help that Boortz is going to be pushing hardcore the "stabbed in the back" meme regarding the Iraq war. Fascist movements typically recruit first from war vets, and as I indicated in the post, the army has already been infiltrated by those who are following in Timothy McVeigh's ideological footsteps.